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Minimum Tetra Kite
Posing in Warm Gusty Air
With the third and final version of the Minimum Tetra kite made up in bright purple, it was time to get some images.
Tiny kites just do as they like sometimes!A suitable sea breeze was blowing in from the southwest, down at a local beach. However, I decided to drop in at a nearer inland reserve to see if conditions would suit.
In fact, on getting out of the car, the breeze was pretty much the same in speed and direction as the online weather station was reporting down at the coast.
At shoulder height, my wind meter reported about 11 kph gusting to 17 kph. That's a little light for this zippy little kite, but it was worth a shot. Also, as usual, there would be a few more kph available some meters above the treetops—particularly at this location, as I have discovered from experience.
After an easy launch, the Minimum Tetra kite did tend to sink out from time to time. But the gusts were quite sufficient to get all the video and stills that were needed.
On this site, there's more kite-making info than you can poke a stick at :-) Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?
The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.
Every kite in every MBK series.
Flights started with just a few meters of polyester thread out, for the closeup shots. Eventually around 30 meters (100 feet) of thread was used to illustrate the little kite soaring at suitably impressive heights over the trees. Mind you, creating an illusion of great height is easy with such a tiny craft!
The single cell tetra could stay up with just the weight of the paper winder holding it, as the thread draped over my kite gear bag. The kite just has so little sail area, it hardly pulls at all! From habit though, I generally held the thread with the heavy bag placed just downwind of the winder.
A kite this small struggles to pull even 200 feet of thread taut, over its entire wind range. However, if you make one for yourself, you'll find just 100 feet of thread provides so much good flying. The kite looks high on that length!
A video with some zoom was taken as the tiny tetra glided about near a large bushy tree. Very convincing for those who might be wondering if the thing does actually fly! A distant helicopter threatened to steal the show but can hardly be heard (or seen) in the clip.
It was a short but satisfying outing. Photographic mission accomplished!
Minimum Tetra Kite Gallery
Click or tap on any photo below to start up the gallery viewer:
The story or stories above document actual flying experiences. My write-ups are definitely "warts and all" since things don't always go totally as planned. However, half the fun of kiting is anticipating the perfect flight. When it happens, it's magic!
As mentioned earlier, there's more kite-making info here than you can poke a stick at :-)
Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?
The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.
Every kite in every MBK series.
